This Week’s Films (07/04/14)

From director Leonard Nimoy (“Three Men and a Baby”) comes a riotous farce detailing what happens when the biological clock of famed cartoonist Gene Wilder goes off. After his attempts to have a child with wife Christine Lahti produce nothing but hilarious results, Wilder considers a wide array of offbeat alternatives on his quest to become a father.

In this fiendishly funny comedy from the creators of AIRPLANE!, loathesome millionaire Sam Stone (Danny DeVito) is ruthless. How ruthless? When his shrill wife Barbara (Bette Midler) is nabbed by inept kidnappers (Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater), Sam cries tears of joy … and refuses to pay the ransom. And when the abductors threaten to kill the abrasive heiress, Sam takes immediate action — he celebrates! RUTHLESS PEOPLE. Raucous … outlandish … one of the top box office hits of the year!

You’ve never seen anything quite like Movie 43…The year’s most outrageous and daringly original comedy, featuring the ultimate star-studded cast. No inappropriate storyline is off limits – including a ‘ballsy’ blind date, a middle school ‘period’ piece and more. Please don’t sue us if you die laughing.

When two young filmmakers select a crazed conspiracy theorist as the subject of their new movie, they have no idea the terrifying peril they will put themselves in. When the man disappears without a trace, the filmmakers begin an obsessive quest to uncover the truth that will lead them to an ancient and dangerous secret society. A meticulously researched thriller based on real conspiracy theories, THE CONSPIRACY blurs the line between fact and fiction, news and propaganda.

Sylvester Stallone stars as Barney Ross, leader of The Expendables, a tight-knit team of skilled combat vets turned mercenaries. Hired by a powerful covert operator, the team jets off to a small South American country to overthrow a ruthless dictator. Once there, they find themselves caught in a deadly web of deceit and betrayal. Using every weapon at their disposal, they set out to save the innocent and punish the guilty in this blistering action-packed thriller.

Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue star in this psychological horror. When divorced mother Sarah (Shue) and her teenage daughter Elissa (Lawrence) move to a new town, they soon learn that their new home is located next door to a house in which a crazed girl bludgeoned her parents to death a few years previously. When Elissa befriends the surviving son of the family, Ryan (Max Thieriot), she discovers that there is more to the story than first meets the eye…

Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios take moviegoers up, up and away on one of the funniest adventures of all time with their latest comedy-fantasy. Up follows the uplifting tale of 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip an overly optimistic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. Their journey to a lost world, where they encounter some strange, exotic and surprising characters, is filled with hilarity, emotion and wildly imaginative adventure.

John Travolta and Robin Williams star in Old Dogs, the hilarious family comedy that will have you howling. Two best friends have their lives turned upside down when they’re unexpectedly charged with the care of seven-year-old twins while on the verge of the biggest business deal of their lives. The clueless bachelors stumble in their efforts to take care of the children, leading to one debacle after another, with a gorilla and some pecking penguins — and perhaps to a newfound understanding of what’s really important in life. Featuring a riotously funny supporting cast including Seth Green, Kelly Preston, Matt Dillon and Lori Laughlin, Old Dogs is a laugh-a-minute comedy filled with heart.

No plan. No backup. No choice. Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his elite team (Jeremy Renner, The Avengers and Simon Pegg, Star Trek) go underground after a bombing of the Kremlin implicates the IMF as international terrorists. While trying to clear the agency’s name, the team uncovers a plot to start a nuclear war. Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The mission has never been more real, more dangerous, or more impossible.

Tommy Cowley (Aneurin Barnard) lives a quiet life in a decaying apartment complex with his very pregnant wife. The couple is attacked one day by a group of hooded young thugs, and after a shocking act of violence, Tommy is left to raise his newborn daughter alone.

So shaken by the events that he s developed extreme agoraphobia, Tommy alternates his days hiding out from imagined threats in his new flat and intense therapy sessions aimed at bringing him back to normalcy. When the same hooded gang seemingly intent on kidnapping his daughter begins terrorizing his life again, he s torn between his paralyzing fear and protective parental instinct. With the help of a vigilante priest who has uncovered the genesis of this ruthless, potentially supernatural gang, Tommy must overcome his fears and venture into the heart of the abandoned tower block known as the Citadel to save his family.

Bill Murray, Janeane Garofalo, Matthew McConaughey and Linda Fiorentino star in a family film thatwill amuse adults as much as it entertains children (Gannett News), while offering a trunkful of love, laughter and excitement they’ll want to experience again and again! Jack Corcoran (Murray) is thrilled when he learns that his father, a former circus clown, has left him a very big inheritance. But when Jack learns that the large legacy is Vera, an 8,000-pound elephant, he immediately makes plans to sell her’to a buyer 3,000 miles away! Thus begins the most outrageous cross-country journey ever, complete with crazed truck drivers, hilarious run-ins with the law and one lovelorn elephant who stretches the limits of travel size but is really big on charm!

Steve Buscemi’s directorial debut is an acclaimed, often-comic examination of an unemployed barfly auto mechanic (Buscemi) and his pathetic non-existence. After being fired from his job, this Long Island loser spends his days and nights in the titular watering hole (when he’s not out driving an ice-cream truck), not realizing that talking about life isn’t the same as living it. Buscemi’s film features an all-star supporting cast that includes Seymour Cassel, Anthony LaPaglia, Debi Mazar, Daniel Baldwin and Samuel L. Jackson…

In CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, Harrison Ford returns as intrepid CIA agent Jack Ryan. When his mentor, Admiral Greer (Jones), becomes gravely ill, Ryan is appointed acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence. His first assignment: investigate the murder of one of the President’s friends, a prominent U.S. businessman with secret ties to Colombian drug cartels. Unbeknownst to Ryan, the CIA has already dispatched a deadly field operative (Dafoe) to lead a paramilitary force against the Colombian drug lords. Caught in the crossfire, Ryan takes matters into his own hands, risking his career and life for the only cause he still believes in — the truth.

Two down-on-their-luck New Yorkers meet over the short-order counter at a Greek diner in Manhattan. She’s a waitress with a painful past, too hurt to fall in love again; he’s a divorced ex-con with a talent for cooking and a big heart, looking for a second chance.

DREAMS OF A LIFE is an imaginative and multilayered quest to go beyond the newspaper reports and solve the mystery of who thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent was and why she lay undiscovered for three years after her death in one of the busiest parts of London. Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above Shopping City in Wood Green. Nobody noticed. Nearly three years later, her flat was forced into by authorities due to lack of rent payment. Her skeleton was found surrounded by Christmas presents that she was in the process of wrapping. Her television was still on.

Gone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck s directorial debut, adapted by Affleck from the novel by Dennis Lehane “Mystic River.” It is an intense look inside an ongoing investigation about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl. As two young private dete ctives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to take the case get closer to finding her, they discover that nothing is as it seems and more dangerous than they ever thought possible. Also starring Academy Award® winners Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) and Ed Harris (Pollack).

Two young couples take a misguided tour onto the back roads of America in search of a local legend known as Dr. Satan. Lost and stranded, they are set upon by a bizarre family of psychotics. Murder, cannibalism and satanic rituals are just a few of the 1000+ horrors that await.

I was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England and have always been a bookworm and enjoyed creative writing at school. In 1999 I created the Elencheran Chronicles and have been writing ever since. My first novel, Fezariu's Epiphany, was published in May 2011. When not writing I'm a lover of films, games, books and blogging. I live in Barnsley, with my wife, Donna, and our six cats - Kain, Razz, Buggles, Charlie, Bilbo and Frodo.